The Amazing Wanda June

February 17, 2021 at 4:37 pm

Wanda June Alexander died on Sunday morning, at her daughter’s house in Santa Fe, up the street from my own places.

Her health had been failing for some time, going back a couple of years at least, so all of us who loved her knew that we were going to lose her soon. We thought she had another three or four months, though, maybe longer… and of course one cannot help but hope, even when the docs tell you there is no hope. Wanda faced and fought lung cancer a few years ago, and though she beat it with chemo, in the aftermath she was left with Idiopathic Pulmony Fibrosis, which was slowly destroying her ability to breathe. She went on as best she could for as long as she could, enjoying every day to the best of her ability, but at the end she was bedridden and hooked up to oxygen 24/7. It was only going to get worse, we were told. The end, when it came, seemed to be as peaceful as it was sudden; she went to sleep, and died sometime in the night. She was gone come morning. Right up to the last she was as sharp, funny, and loving a woman she had always been. A lot of friends came to visit her and spend time with her over the holidays and afterward, and she enjoyed their company as much as she enjoyed theirs. Wanda June was always a delight.

Wanda and Raya

Wanda June was a dear dear friend… but more than that, really. She and Raya have been part of our family, in one sense or another, for decades. I do not actually recall when and where I first met Wanda. It was at a con, no doubt, probably in the late 70s or early 80s. I knew OF Wanda before I actually knew Wanda, however. She was an East Coast fan when I first began hearing tales of her, from mutual friends. Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, David Axler, Dave Kogelmen, Joe and Gay Haldeman… all of them were friends of mine, and friends of the legendary Wanda June. She was one of Parris’s oldest, dearest friends, from the 70s on to this very day. Parris, as many of you know, ran off and joined the circus in the late 70s, travelling with Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey for a year, selling sno-cones to the kids. She fell in love with the elephants (and loves elephants still). But it was Wanda June who inspired her… Wanda ran off and joined the circus first. Instead of elephants, Wanda fell in love with a clown. The relationship did not endure, but from that union came the great joy of Wanda June’s life, her amazing daughter Raya. (Seen above when she was little).

The circus was only the start of Wanda June’s adventures. After Ringling she returned to New York City, where she became an editor for Tor Books… and Raya got her start in publishing toddling around the corridors of the Flatiron Building, bringing Tom Doherty his mail. Ultimately she left Tor to go back to school, though, heading off to Montana to get her Master’s degree in English. As much as she loved editing, she loved teaching more… and her students loved her. She was one of those teachers who changes lives, and she shared her loved of books and reading (and SF and fantasy) with all the kids she taught.

She began her teaching career after Montana, and it took her to some pretty colorful places, including a small island off the coast of Alaska, and a place called Dead Monkey Ridge in New Mexico, where she taught on the Navajo Reservation for some years. Then came Grants, New Mexico, and the public schools there… and finally retirement. Education was the poorer when Wanda June put down her chalk and her eraser. Once retired, she moved to Santa Fe to be close to Raya, and we had the pleasure of her company frequently. She and Parris and Raya… and sometimes me… shared some great memories of these past few years. Trips to Ireland, the Yucatan, the Bahamas, London. Thanksgiving feasts at Melinda’s house. Christmas morning, opening gifts.

And cons. She was an educator, an editor, an agent, a mother, and a circus roadie… but through it all, Wanda June Alexander was always a FAN. She loved science fiction and fantasy, loved books, movies, and television, loved fandom… and above all, loved the friends she made there. Wanda had sisters and other blood relatives, a largish family, but fandom was her family too. If I believed in such things, it would please me to think she was off with Gardner and Kay and Roger right now, drinking and laughing and telling jokes at the Secret Pro Party in the sky.

She was one of a kind, Wanda June. We are all going to miss her so very, very much.

((Raya tells me that, in lieu of flowers or other memorials, Wanda would have wanted those who mourn her to donate to a local teen or family shelter near where you live. Wanda always loved the kids: her own students, and those she never had the chance to teach, and please be sure they are LGBTQ friendly and an inclusive organization in general)).

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: fandom, life and death

Reflections on a Bad Year

February 2, 2021 at 8:49 am

January has gone past in the blink of an eye.

In the past, I have often written a year’s end round-up of sorts on my Not A Blog just before or after New Year’s. This year, though… 2020 was probably the worst year I have ever lived through, for the country and the world if not for me personally, and I say that from the perspective of someone who lived through, and remembers, 1968. So much happened, and so much of it was dire, but all the rest dwindles in importance in the shadow of hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths.

The worst of the pandemic may be yet to come, alas, but at least we see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Like millions of others, I am waiting for my turn to get the vaccine. I am on the list. Soon, I hope… meanwhile, I continue to go masked and quarantine myself as much as possible.

At least we dumped Trump. That was far and away the best thing to come out of 2020. We went out ugly, of course. The same way he came in. The same way he governed. What a vile vile man.

Personally… well, I lost a number of friends, some very near and dear to me. I have several other friends who are in failing health, so I fear that there may be more losses to come. Parris and I are as well as might be expected, but… this growing old is no fun. Was it Yeats who wrote, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be?” How old was he when he wrote that, I wonder? Twenty-two? He fibbed. Growing old sucks. (Yes, right now I hear someone saying “it beats the alternative,” which is what the unimaginative ALWAYS say… but being an SF writer, I can imagine many better alternatives. Eternal youth. Robot/ android bodies. Cold sleep. Upload to the internet. C’mon science guys, get cracking. Death sucks even worse than getting old).

What was good about 2020? Besides the election?

Well… for me… there was work.

I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020. The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll.

I need to keep rolling, though. I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.

That’s what 2021 is for, I hope.

I will make no predictions on when I will finish. Every time I do, assholes on the internet take that as a “promise,” and then wait eagerly to crucify me when I miss the deadline. All I will say is that I am hopeful.

I have a zillion other things to do as well, though. My plate is full to overflowing. Every time I wrap up one thing, three more things land on me. Monkeys on my back, aye, aye, I’ve sung that song before. So many monkeys. And Kong.

I will talk about all that in a different blog post.

Meanwhile, guys and gals, please keep yourselves safe and healthy. I will try to do the same.

Current Mood: tired tired

Tags: life and death, writing

A New Hope

January 20, 2021 at 1:22 pm

No, I am not talking about STAR WARS.

I’ve spent the morning watching Joe Biden being sworn in as president.

Joe is not the orator that Obama and JFK were, but I found his speech profoundly moving. He said all the right things.

I do not envy him. Very few presidents have faced the sort of challenges he does. Lincoln, perhaps. FDR, taking over in the deep of the Great Depression. No one else. The road ahead will not be easy. The sort of problems that America faces cannot be solved easily, nor overnight. But if anyone can solve them, I think it is Biden. He is experienced, intelligent, and above all compassionate.

These are dark days in America, but this morning, for the first time in a long while, I am feeling a little hope.

A Farewell to Phyl

January 18, 2021 at 5:04 pm

My old friend Phyllis Eisenstein died on December 7, in Chicago. The cause of death, I am told, was Covid-19, but Phyllis had been hospitalized for most of the year, following a cerebral hemorrhage last January.

I have been trying to write a memorial to her since her passing… trying, and struggling with it. The holidays interfered, as they will, and of course I have so much on my plate… but mainly it was just hard. There was so much to say, and it seemed that only days had passed since I wrote about the deaths of Kay McCauley and then Ben Bova. Each one of those was a blow, and coming so soon one after the other… I confess, it left me in a dark place. The closer you are to someone, the harder it is to do justice to their memory. And Phyllis and I were close.

My old friend, I said… and damn, but that is true. I had known Phyl for half a century, I’ve realized, looking back. We first met in Boston in 1971, at Noreascon I, the first worldcon I ever attended. She was working the SFWA table at the con, greeting members and telling them about SFWA… a volunteer, giving of her time and effort to help out. Phyllis did a lot of that; she had a generous soul. I had only sold two stories when I turned up at Noreason and I was not yet qualified to join SFWA. I had only attended one previous sf con, so I knew almost no one at worldcon… but Phyllis was warm and friendly, and I spent a lot of the con hanging around her at the table, and she introduced me to other writers, editors, artists, all sorts of people. Phyllis, and her husband Alex, had been a part of fandom for a long time, and she seemed to know everyone.

I mean to write about all that, and more, but I also wanted to say something about her work, for Phyllis Eisenstein was a gifted and accomplished writer, one who never got the attention that I think that she deserved. There’s a lot to say about that as well. And I will.

The days have been flying by, though, and the demands on me have been building, and finally I concluded it was better to post this short notice than say nothing at all. I will return to Phyllis and write her a much longer memorial, I promise… when I can. Soon, I hope.

There has been too much death. Phyl is the third friend I lost in the last two months of 2020, that most dismal of years. And three other friends, people very near and dear to me, are struggling with very grave health issues even now. It seems there is darkness everywhere. The COVID death count keeps rising, there are fascists in the streets; the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity, and Kay and Ben and Phyl are all gone.

Be well, my friends.

Current Mood: sad sad

Tags: fandom, life and death, writing

Words for Our Times

January 13, 2021 at 10:02 am

Current Mood: anxious anxious

Tags: life and death, politics

Moveable Feasts

January 11, 2021 at 8:15 am

A few weeks ago, while up in my mountain fastness, I rewatched MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, the Woody Allen film about a struggling writer visiting modern Paris (played by Owen Wilson) who finds himself travelling back in time to Paris of the 20s, where he finds himself bumping into Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Picasso, and the other artists and writers who made that such a special time. It’s a lovely, entertaining movie about nostalgia. I have enjoyed it before and I expect I will enjoy it again.

Watching it, however, made me realize that I had never read Hemingway’s A MOVEABLE FEAST, his memoir about his days in Paris as a hungry young writer in the 20s. That book, and the times it chronicles, were obviously what inspired Allen to do MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. I have never been a huge Hemingway fan, as it happens — I have read several of his novels, of course, though by no means all, and when I look back on the writers of that era, I find I much prefer F. Scott Fitzgerald — but I was curious, so I went and ordered the book and devoured it as soon as it arrived.

A few random thoughts–
— Woody Allen really nails Hemingway in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, hoo boy,
— I liked A MOVEABLE FEAST more than I have any of Hemingway’s novels, truth be told.   It was a vivid glimpse back into a vanished time and place, and into the author himself as a young man.   The book was not entirely what I expected.   Parts of it were moving and nostalgic, but other parts were surprisingly funny, like Hemingway’s efforts to assure Fitzgerald that his dick was not too small by showing him statues in the Louvre.   Other parts were sad, like the account of his estrangement from Gertrude Stein.   And his thoughts on life, love, and writing are always fascinating,
— Hemingway could not have been an easy friend; his judgements of others could be scathing and acidic.   Alice Roosevelt Longworth would have wanted him sitting near her, for certain,
— whatever golden glow might light the moveable feast of Paris in the 20s, I can never escape the knowledge that after the 20s came the 30s, when the lights went out all over Europe.   You know. Nazis.   And that makes me think of the world today, and shiver.

Thing is, while A MOVEABLE FEAST is about Paris in the 20s, it was not written until decades later. It was, in fact, published posthumously, after Hemingway took his own life. He was writing and editing it during the last years of his life… an old man, rich and famous and sad, looking back on his youth when he was poor and struggling and unknown, but alive and vital, in love with his first wife and with Paris, drunk on dreams of what the future might hold, of all the possibilities that lay before him. The whole book very much exemplifies what Woody Allen was talking about in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Papa, in those final years, is writing of the time and place when he was happiest… or at least the time and place he remembers being happiest… but I do wonder whether or not he is only remembering the good stuff.

Reading it, I could not help but reflect on my own life. We all have our own moveable feasts. For me, I think, it was science fiction fandom in the 70s. I was a struggling writer then, just as Hemingway was in the 20s; writing, writing, going to workshops, collecting rejections, trying to get better, never knowing when the next sale might come. No, I did not get to hang with Scott and Zelda, or Hemingway, or Gertrude Stein, or Dali… but I had Howard Waldrop and Jack Dann and Lisa Tuttle, I drank with the Haldemans, I hunted the hallways of worldcon with Gardner Dozois looking for the Secret Pro Party, went skinny-dipping in hotel pools and met Parris in a sauna. When I got hungry I went looking for an editor with an expense account who might buy me a meal (elsewise I was scrounging in the con suite). Giants walked the halls in those days, and I had the good fortune to meet a few of them, if only to tell them what their work had meant to me. I shook the hands of C.L. Moore and Edmond Hamilton and Murray Leinster, I had actual conversations with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury and Ted Sturgeon, I got to share meals with Julie Schwartz and Wilson Tucker, with Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg.

Like Hemingway in Paris, I never had much money. I shared rooms at cons, slept on floors or in a bathtub, got to the cons on a bus or in the back seat of a friend’s car… walked to the hotels from the bus station, lugging my suitcase in my hand (no wheels on luggage in those days) since I did not have the money for a cab. Were those the bad parts? Or the good parts? From 2020, it is not easy to say. They make me smile now, as I look back. But if I try, I know that there were really bad parts too. Like Hemingway, though, I choose not to dwell on them. The world was a fucked-up place, then as now, but fandom was a refuge; warm, welcoming, strange (but in a good way), a community unlike any I had ever known, united by a shared love of our peculiar little branch of literature and the people who wrote it.

To quote one of Hemingway’s contemporaries, however, you can’t go home again. By the time Hemingway sat down to write A MOVEABLE FEAST in those last years of his life, he surely knew that the Paris he had known and loved in the 20s was gone forever… and the fandom that I knew and loved in the 70s is gone as well. This year the worldcon is in Washinton DC, in the very same hotel where the 1974 worldcon was held… the worldcon where I lost my first Hugo, accepted Lisa Tuttle’s Campbell Award, and prowled the halls till dawn with Gargy, looking for parties we never found. There is a part of me that somehow hopes that going back to the same hotel in the same city, I might somehow recapture something of those nights. But my head knows better. My head knows those days are gone forever, along with so many of the people that I shared them with. I wonder how often Papa Hemingway returned to Paris in the 40s and 50s, and what he thought of the place when he did.

Anyway… I quite like MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and I loved A MOVEABLE FEAST. Maybe you will too.

Current Mood: melancholy

Tags: fandom, movies, reading, writing

The Republic Under Attack

January 6, 2021 at 2:25 pm

What is happening in Washington right now is shocking and dismaying… but I can’t say I find it entirely unexpected.

There have been all too many days, these past couple of years, when I feared that the United States was going the way of the Weimar Republic.

And now the moment of coup is at hand. Rioters breaking into the Capitol, even the floor of the House and Senate. One of them trying to haul down the American flag and replace it with a Trump flag. Congressmen and senators being forced to recess and seek safety.

Sickening.

This is an attempted coup. Make no mistake. I am still hopeful that it will end as a failed coup, a Beer Hall Putsch, but we shall see. The inaction of law enforcement thusfar has been shocking.

Make no mistake, these are not protestors, these are not patriots, these are rioters attempting to destroy our democracy.

They are traitors.

And the traitor in chief is Donald J. Trump.

He should be arrested, removed from office, tried for treason, convicted, and imprisoned. And Rudy with him. This is their work.

Current Mood: angry angry

Tags: politics

The Deuces Return!

January 4, 2021 at 8:10 am

The deuces are back. Puddleman and Chuckles, Cash Mitchell, Gary Bushorn, Father Henry Obst, the Jokertown Boys, the Myth Patrol, and all their friends will be returning… with Croyd Crenson and Demise, and some brand new characters that Wild Card readers need to meet. Come January 5, Tor will be releasing a brand new edition of DEUCES DOWN, one of the scarcer volumes in the Wild Cards series… with three brand new stories, published for the first time.

The wild card virus, as all readers of the series know, affects every victim differently. Ninety per cent of those stricken draw the black queen, and die. Those who survive their transformation are generally classified either as jokers, twisted and malformed by the xenovirus, or aces, who emerge with superpowers of one sort or another. But there is a fourth category: the so-called deuces, whose powers are trivial, seemingly useless, sometimes ludicrous. DEUCES DOWN tells their stories.

The Wild Cards series got its start in 1987 with a twelve-volume run at Bantam Spectra. Then we moved to Baen for three books, the “Card Shark” triad. After that, however, there was a seven year break in our publication history, until Byron Preiss picked the series for iBooks. Preiss reissued a number of the early Bantam volumes in new editions, and also published two brand new installments in the series: DEUCES DOWN and John Jos. Miller’s solo novel DEATH DRAWS FIVE. When Byron was killed in a tragic automobile accident, however, iBooks did not long survive him. With the company going under, neither DEUCES DOWN nor (especially) DEATH DRAWS FIVE received much in the way of distribution. Brick Tower Press later acquired the iBooks backlist, but the two iBooks originals have remained very difficult to find… so all of us in Wild Cards are thrilled that the two books will now reach the readership they deserve with these new Tor editions.

The original iBooks edition of DEUCES DOWN was pretty much a straight anthology: a collection of stories about deuces largely unrelated to one another, save by theme. The contributing authors were Melinda M. Snodgrass, Walton (Bud) Simons, Stephen Leigh, Michael Cassutt, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Daniel Abraham, and John J. Miller.

The new Tor edition will include all that and more. We’ve added new stories from Mary Anne Mohanraj and Caroline Spector… and an original linking interstitial narrative from Carrie Vaughn than brings all the tales together, to transform the book into a true Wild Cards mosaic novel. I loved the new content, and I hope you will as well.

DEUCES DOWN will be on sale at your local bookstore, and from your favorite on-line bookseller… and of course autographed copies can be had from Beastly Books in Santa Fe at https://jeancocteaucinema.com/beastlybooks/

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: anthologies, tor, wild cards

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